My Dream Has Died
by Bohemian Storm
Summary: "She had fallen in love with the one man who would never want to be with her, she would only bring pain and anguish upon herself. Faramir pitied her."


Disclaimer: I don't own any of the following characters. They belong to Tolkien and, in the case of the woman, The Phantom. The lines inside ~ and ~ are excerpts from the poem and they also belong to her.   
  
Notes: This fic was inspired by The Phantom's amazing poem 'I Weep for Thee' and is basically a prose version of what's happened in that poem. I highly recommend it, it's one of my favourites and it would probably be helpful if you read it first.  
  
Dedicated to The Phantom, of course, because this all came from you. And TK, because the original poem was dedicated to you. :D  
  
My Dream Has Died  
  
~My dearest love, it cannot be  
That now I sit and weep for thee~  
  
  
Faramir had noticed her the first time she had run out into the street, dark eyes following their horses as he and his brother Boromir rode down the street, but he had paid her no mind. She was but a peasant and a homely one at that. Her hair was blonde, but lank and tied back tightly, revealing only a plain face with a slightly hooked nose. Her thin hands fluttered around her heart before coming together and resting there as she stared at them, eyes wide and flashing with something he had not seen before.   
  
It was weeks before Faramir could finally put a name to the emotion he saw in her brown eyes and months before he could understand what could possibly put it there. It was love, admiration and possibly more than that, but he could not be sure. At first he had toyed with the idea that perhaps he had put those feelings into her heart and the expression into her eyes, but as the days wore on he knew that that was not the case. She was not in love with him, but his brother, Boromir. The one man in all of Gondor who would never cast her a second glance.  
  
Boromir had never cared for the attractive girls of his home, he was quite possibly the one man who would have married the peasant had he been the slightest bit interested in marrying. But his brother had never wanted a wife, he had wanted only to battle and to reign. She had fallen in love with the one man who would never want to be with her, she would bring only pain and anguish upon herself.   
  
Faramir pitied her.  
  
  
~You did not know, you did not see  
The homely girl that pined for thee~  
  
  
Ancalimë watched him ride by each day, her head held high and proud, wanting him to see her. If only he were to catch a glimpse, if only his eyes would turn in her direction everything she had waited for would finally come to her. Yet, day after day, Boromir did not look at her. He would patrol Gondor, his eyes high above her as if searching for something better than she was. She supposed he was searching for something better, if he were to marry it would be a union to someone far beyond her stature in Gondor. Ancalimë knew she was below Boromir, she knew that she did not deserve a man like him and yet she could not help loving him.  
  
If her mother ever knew how she wasted her time during the day, how she pined after him and stared longingly at him every time he rode by, she would be punished. Rather than setting herself up for a realistic life, she was setting herself up for heartbreak and failure. Ancalimë knew that, but she could not stop herself. He was the only thought that kept her going, his face was in her mind as she fell asleep and his name on her lips as she awoke in the morning. He was burned into her, and he would be a part of her forever.  
  
Days went by, days when she would run out into the street with every sound of a passing horse or man. Boromir passed by less often as the days went on and yet Ancalimë waited, wishing for the day when her lord would come to steal her away from her life, to bring her to his castle and give her everything she had ever wished for.   
  
Slowly, she began to realize what was happening. She was becoming a devoted wife before she had even spoken a simple greeting to her husband, she worried about him when he was away, cried for him in her sleep and prayed for his safe return every night. Ancalimë had fallen in love with the handsome face of a hero, a man she had never chanced to speak to and it was not right. He could not love her without knowing her and he could not know her without speaking to her.  
  
She had tried many times after that, she had tried so very hard to speak with him but he had not noticed her attempts. Her voice would get lost in her throat, coming out as a soft squeak in the bustling market area, or her hands would quiver and fall to her sides before she could wave to him and attract attention to herself. She began to curse her own name, calling herself a coward, a useless excuse for a human.   
  
His name would dance on her lips and tongue and she wanted to scream it into the air. She wanted him to look at her and yet the closest she ever came to feeling his gaze was having Faramir look upon her with more pity than she had ever seen.  
  
  
~Oblivious, my lord, you were  
This girl; you did not notice her~  
  
  
Faramir watched her as Boromir prepared to leave Gondor. Tears shone in her wide eyes, falling like glittering diamonds onto her cheeks. She looked like a child saying goodbye to her father or her brother, a child who felt as if she were losing everything in the world that had mattered to her. She looked as if the one man who had vowed to protect her forever was breaking his promise and betraying her by leaving. He watched her heart break in those dark eyes, her gaze on Boromir fierce and unwavering.   
  
Still, his brother had never once noticed her. More than a few times Faramir had brought her up in conversation, asking Boromir if he had ever noticed the peasant girl who would appear every day when they rode by. His brother had been confused, asking Faramir who he meant as he had never seen any woman watching them daily. Faramir had just smiled and changed the subject; it was obvious after that, that Boromir had never seen her let alone thought about her.  
  
His smiles were few and far between, reserved mostly for members of the family and once Faramir had caught Boromir smiling during a patrol. She had been there, her eyes on the curve of his brother's lips, her hands clasped to her heart as if the very sight of his smile was enough to send her happily to her death. She had seen Boromir smile and that, it appeared, was enough.  
  
Yet, as he packed the saddlebags on his horse and prepared to leave, she watched with tears in her eyes and on her face. Flowers were clutched in her hands, wilting in the midday heat and the petals dropped off, slowly floating toward the ground. Faramir wondered if she had meant to give them to Boromir as a parting gift, but supposed it no longer mattered. The flowers were crumbling in her hands, no longer worthy of a gift to a warrior and she knew it. Her face fell as the flowers wilted and she dropped them to the sand, staring at them for a long moment before turning her sad eyes back toward Boromir.  
  
Faramir could not see how Boromir could be so blind. She was constantly there and yet he had never even seen her. She was invisible to him.  
  
Perhaps when he returned, Faramir thought. Perhaps when Boromir returned he would force him to see the girl that pined for him. Yet, Boromir never returned.   
  
  
~Where shall I go? What shall I do?  
My dream has died; my heart has, too~  
  
  
News came to Ancalimë months later, telling her of Boromir's tragic death. She wept, beating her fists against a wooden support beam in her parents' barn. Splinters embedded themselves into her hands, blood beading on her skin before dropping to the ground that seemed so far below. Her watery eyes followed the blood, pooling near her feet. It was such a tiny amount, but perhaps that was the perfect solution to her pain. The blood, all she needed was to see more blood pooled around her.   
  
Her eyes glazed over slightly and she knelt, picking up the parchment that had delivered the news to Gondor of Boromir's death. She had taken the notice from the centre of the town and carried it with her, letting the silent tears stream down her face until she was in the safe haven of the barn. There she had read the parchment over and over again, gasping sobs ripping from her throat as she realized it was all true. Boromir was dead and her heart died with him.  
  
The parchment trembled in her fingers and she dropped it again before retreating to her house for just a moment. She returned with an inkwell and a feather pen, then lit a torch and placed it in its lamp on the wall. Slowly, she bent and placed the ink and feather next to the parchment. Ancalimë studied them both before settling on the ground before them and dipping the feather into the inkwell. Her last words would be forever inscribed upon this parchment that spoke of the death of her Boromir.  
  
The noise of the feather scratching against the parchment filled the barn, disrupted only by Ancalimë's strangled sobs. Her thoughts, her dreams and her shattered heart were spilled onto the paper, her love for Boromir admitted time and again as she wrote her last thoughts. At least the feather stopped and her hand fell, knocking over the inkwell and dropping the pen. She held the parchment in her trembling hands, then laid it lovingly on a wooden bench before she moved further into the barn.  
  
Ancalimë found a thick rope and climbed up to the hay loft, tying the rope around a support beam that spanned the length of the ceiling. Her thin hands worked quickly and knotted the rope efficiently before she stared at the end of it. Slowly and mechanically she knotted the end, sliding a noose through and letting it fall from her hands and dangle below. The thick, rough rope swung back and forth as she climbed down from the loft.  
  
She picked up the note and held it in trembling hands, then struggled to drag the wooden bench across the barn. Tears still falling and her breath heaving in and out of her lungs, Ancalimë climbed onto the bench and slipped the rough noose around her neck. She could not live without him, she refused. If Boromir had to die, if the world was so cruel as to take him away from her, she would leave the world as well.  
  
Ancalimë wept, then tightened her grip on her note and stepped off the bench.  
  
  
~I shall not live in this mortal hell  
If you have died, I will as well  
And when this world I do depart  
They'll find this note clutched to my heart~  
  
  
Ancalimë; that had been her name. Faramir had heard of his brother's death and he had been unsure of how to grieve. Surely men - warriors, rather - did not weep, but women did and he knew of one who would weep more than any other. He had vowed to find her, to tell her that Boromir had noticed her or some lie that would perhaps relieve the pain she would be feeling. Faramir was an honest man, but he would do anything to lessen to pain of the woman who had stared upon his brother with such longing.  
  
Now he stood before her house, knocking on the wooden door. He waited and yet no one came. The house appeared dark, though dusk had begun to rush into Gondor, throwing shadows across the walks and streets. With a hand shielding his eyes, Faramir stared into the window and searched for some sort of sign that there was someone inside. He called out, asking for the man or woman of the house and still no one answered his call.  
  
Faramir went around the house to the small garden and barn that lay behind it. A light flickered in the barn, beckoning him to follow and discover what lay beyond the heavy wooden doors. It was eerily quiet, not even the birds made a sound as he walked forward. His boots scrapped on stone, seeming to echo in the deep silence that surrounded him.  
  
Faramir slowly opened the door and looked up Ancalimë. Her body was very still, hanging from the thick rope that was tied to a strong rafter. In her hands was a parchment, her writing scrawled across the paper. It was because of Boromir that she had done this, he knew. It was because his brother had never been able to love her, then had died without returning to even give her a second chance. It was because she loved an unattainable man and knew it, she knew there would be no beautiful marriage, no children running in her own garden. Her dreams had shattered a little more each day and it was because of Boromir that she was hanging by her throat from a beam in her family's barn.  
  
He went to her, hands shaking and lips tightened. Faramir crossed the barn and stood on the bench, lifting Ancalimë's body and removing the tight rope from around her throat. He did not want her family to see her as she was, dangling and swinging in her death. Instead, he placed her gently on the ground, then took the crumbled notes from her hands and spread it out on the floor.   
  
His eyes scanned the words, the admission that she had been in love with a man who could give her nothing. Faramir felt for her, ached for her as he read her final words and thoughts. He could not have prevented her end, but he wished that Boromir had noticed her, if only briefly. A glimpse, a short gaze, perhaps even a smile that was actually directed at her.  
  
Yet, she had had none of this and still she managed to love him. Still, she managed to weep for him when he died. Faramir slowly folded the note and placed it on her chest, just above her heart. His fingers brushed lightly over her face, closing her eyelids over the dark depths that had caused him to notice her in the first place.   
  
If only Boromir had seen, the peasant girl would not have had reason to weep.  
  
  
~Because you never looked at me  
My Boromir, I weep for thee~  
  
  
End  
  
  
  
More notes: The name Ancalimë was taken from my appendices ... she was the first Ruling Queen of Númenor. I was lost at finding a female name that was Tolkien-esque. Leave a review if you like what you see. Leave a review if you don't. :D 


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